158 THE TOCANTINS. Chap. IV. 



lowered by means of a rope attached to the top. The 

 same material serves for many purposes ; partitions 

 and even the external walls of houses of the poorer 

 classes are often made of it. It fell to my charge to 

 manage the sail during our voyage, whilst Bean steered, 

 but when in the middle of the broad river the halyard 

 broke, and in endeavouring to mend it we nearly upset 

 the boat, for the wind blew strongly and the waves 

 ran high. We fortunately met, soon afterwards, a negro 

 who was descending in a similar boat to ours, and who, 

 seeing our distress, steered towards us and kindly 

 supplied us with a new rope. We stayed a day and 

 night on the island. The house was of a similar 

 description to those I have already described as common 

 on the low islands of the Tocantins. The cacaoal 

 which surrounded it consisted of about 10,000 trees, 

 which I was astonished to hear produced altogether 

 only 100 arrobas or 3200 pounds of the chocolate nut 

 per annum. I had seen trees on the main land, which 

 having been properly attended to, produced yearly 

 thirty-two pounds each, or 100 times as much as those 

 of Dona Paulina's cacaoal ; the average yield in 

 plantations on the Amazons near Santarem is 700 

 arrobas to 10,000 trees. Agriculture was evidently 

 in a very low condition hereabout ; the value of 

 a cacao estate was very trifling, each tree being worth 

 only forty reis or one penny, this including the land 

 on which the plantation stands. A square league of 

 country planted with cacao could thus be bought for 

 40^. or 50L sterling. The selling price of cacao is 

 very fluctuating ; 3,500 reis, or about eight shillings 



